Sir William Jones (see the
headnote to Jones's Palace of Fortune,
just above) wrote A Hymn to Narayena in
the spring of 1785 and published it later
the same year in the first issue of Asiatick
Miscellany (Calcutta). It was reprinted
and praised in several London magazines over
the next couple of years, and is generally
considered to be Jones's best effort
in a lyric form (in this instance a type
of Pindaric ode). Jones's lengthy "Argument" summarizes
the content, which may be seen to have much
in common with later expressions of mystical
pantheism in Romantic lyrics by, among others,
Wordsworth ("Tintern Abbey," NAEL
8, 2.258–62) and Percy Shelley ("Mont
Blanc" and "Hymn to Intellectual
Beauty," NAEL 8, 2.762–68).

The Argument

A
complete introduction to the following Ode
would be no less than a full comment on the
Vayds and Purans of the Hindus, the remains
of Egyptian and Persian Theology,
and the tenets of the Ionick and Italick Schools;
but this is not the place for so vast a disquisition.
It will be sufficient here to premise, that
the inextricable difficulties attending the vulgar
notion of material substances,
concerning which

"We know this only, that we nothing
know,"

induced many of the wisest among the Ancients,
and some of the most enlightened among the
Moderns, to believe, that the whole Creation
was rather an energy than a work,
by which the Infinite Being, who is present
at all times in all places, exhibits to the
minds of his creatures a set of perceptions,
like a wonderful picture or piece of musick,
always varied, yet always uniform; so that
all bodies and their qualities exist, indeed,
to every wise and useful purpose, but exist
only as far as they are perceived;
a theory no less pious than sublime, and
as different from any principle of Atheism,
as the brightest sunshine differs from the
blackest midnight. This illusive operation of
the Deity the Hindu philosophers call,
Maya, or Deception; and the word occurs
in this sense more than once in the commentary
on the Rig Vayd, by the great Vasishtha,
of which Mr. Halhed has given us an admirable
specimen.

The first stanza of the Hymn represents
the sublimest attributes of the Supreme Being,
and the three forms, in which they most clearly
appear to us, Power, Wisdom, and Goodness,
or, in the language of Orpheus and his disciples, Love:
the second comprises the Indian and Egyptian doctrine
of the Divine Essence and Archetypal Ideas;
for a distinct account of which the reader
must be referred to a noble description in
the sixth book of Plato's Republick;
and the fine explanation of that passage
in an elegant discourse by the author of
Cyrus, from whose learned work a hint has
been borrowed for the conclusion of this
piece. The third and fourth are
taken from the Institutes of Menu, and the
eighteenth Puran of Vyasa, entitled Srey
Bhagawat, part of which has been translated
into Persian, not without elegance,
but rather too paraphrastically. From Brehme,
or the Great Being, in the neuter gender,
is formed Brehma, in the masculine;
and the second word is appropriated to the creative
power of the Divinity.

The spirit of God, call'd Narayena,
or moving on the water, has a multiplicity
of other epithets in Sanscrit, the
principal of which are introduced, expressly
or by allusion, in the fifth stanza;
and two of them contain the names of the evil
beings, who are feigned to have sprung
from the ears of Vishnu; for thus the divine
spirit is entitled, when considered as the preserving
power: the sixth ascribes the
perception of secondary qualities
by our senses to the immediate influence
of Maya; and the seventh imputes to
her operation the primary qualities
of extension and solidity.

The Hymn

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125

Spirit of Spirits, who, through ev'ry
part
Of space expanded and of endless time,
Beyond the stretch of lab'ring thought
sublime,
Badst uproar into beauteous order start,
Before
Heav'n was, Thou art:
Ere spheres beneath us roll'd or spheres above,
Ere earth in firmamental ether hung,
Thou satst alone; till, through thy mystick
Love,
Things unexisting to existence sprung,
And grateful
descant sung.
What first impell'd thee to exert thy might?
Goodness unlimited. What glorious light
Thy pow'r directed? Wisdom without bound.
What prov'd it first? Oh! guide my fancy
right;
Oh! raise
from cumbrous ground
My soul
in rapture drown'd,
That fearless it may soar on wings of fire;
For Thou, who only knowst, Thou only canst inspire.

Wrapt in eternal solitary shade,
Th' impenetrable gloom of light intense,
Impervious, inaccessible, immense,
Ere spirits were infus'd or forms display'd,
Brehm
his own Mind survey'd,
As mortal eyes (thus finite we compare
With infinite) in smoothest mirrors gaze:
Swift, at his look, a shape supremely fair
Leap'd into being with a boundless blaze,
That
fifty suns might daze.
Primeval Maya was the Goddess nam'd,
Who to her sire, with Love divine inflam'd,
A casket gave with rich Ideas fill'd,
From which this gorgeous Universe he fram'd;
For,
when th' Almighty will'd,
Unnumber'd
worlds to build,
From Unity diversified he sprang,
While gay Creation laugh'd, and procreant Nature rang.
First an all-potent all-pervading sound
Bade flow the waters — and the waters
flow'd,
Exulting in their measureless abode,
Diffusive, multitudinous, profound,
Above,
beneath, around;
Then o'er the vast expanse primordial wind
Breath'd gently till a lucid bubble rose,
Which grew in perfect shape an Egg refin'd:
Created substance no such lustre shows,
Earth
no such beauty knows.
Above the warring waves it danc'd elate,
Till from its bursting shell with lovely
state
A form cerulean flutter'd o'er the
deep,
Brightest of beings, greatest of the great:
Who,
not as mortals steep,
Their
eyes in dewy sleep,
But heav'nly-pensive on the Lotos lay,
That blossom'd at his touch and shed a golden ray.

Hail, primal blossom! hail empyreal gem!
Kemel, or Pedma, or whate'er high name
Delight thee, say, what four-form'd Godhead
came,
With graceful stole and beamy diadem,
Forth
from thy verdant stem?
Full-gifted Brehma! Rapt in solemn thought
He stood, and round his eyes fire-darting
threw;
But, whilst his viewless origin he sought,
One plain he saw of living waters blue,
Their
spring nor saw nor knew.
Then, in his parent stalk again retir'd,
With restless pain for ages he inquir'd
What were his pow'rs, by whom, and why
conferr'd:
With doubts perplex'd, with keen impatience
fir'd
He rose,
and rising heard
Th' unknown
all-knowing Word,
"Brehma! no more in vain research persist:
My veil thou canst not move — Go; bid all worlds exist."

Omniscient Spirit, whose all-ruling pow'r
Bids from each sense bright emanations beam;
Glows in the rainbow, sparkles in the stream,
Smiles in the bud, and glistens in the flow'r
That
crowns each vernal bow'r;
Sighs in the gale, and warbles in the throat
Of ev'ry bird, that hails the bloomy
spring,
Or tells his love in many a liquid note,
Whilst envious artists touch the rival string,
Till
rocks and forests ring;
Breathes in rich fragrance from the sandal grove,
Or where the precious musk-deer playful rove;
In dulcet juice from clust'ring fruit
distills,
And burns salubrious in the tasteful clove:
Soft
banks and verd'rous hills
Thy present
influence fills;
In air, in floods, in caverns, woods, and plains;
Thy will inspirits all, thy sov'reign Maya reigns.